Speculative Paper: Theater/ Dance and New Media and Information
Technologies

By Scott deLahunta

Written and presented to the Working Groups on Dance and Drama, Research Group on Reorganisation of Professional Arts Education, Amsterdam, April 1998.

I have been asked to contribute this paper to the Working Groups
on Dance and Drama on the relationship between the professional
fields of theater and dance and 'new media' technologies.

['New media' is a broad catch-all term which, for the purposes
of this paper, I see as loosely synonymous and interchangeable
with the following: digital and computer technologies, emerging
media, information and communication technologies (ICT), interactive
multimedia, new technologies, etc.]

1)New versus Old Media

It is important to recognise the extent to which 'new media' is
not 'new', but is a continuation of an ongoing process of cultural
mediatization. Tracing today's technological developments back
through the relatively recent 'heyday' periods of consumer devices
such as the walkman and VCR, TV remote control, cable and satellite
television, polaroid cameras, etc. can help provide a perspective
from which to resist the seductions of the 'new media' marketplace.
Each of these technologies helped contribute to a shift towards
more individually controlled and customized media environments
something 'new media' is quite happy now to capitalize on and
even take credit for. (1) Going even further back, the phenomenon
of 'telepresence' and 'instantaneous remote communication' was
initiated by the first telegraphic transmission in 1845, something
easily forgotten as we respond to the excitement generated around
email. These are just some examples of the ways in which
the past can be connected with the present - and complicate this
tendency towards a separation between 'old' and 'new'.

However, this is not to suggest that one should reduce what 'new
media' means into an assemblage of historical trajectories, the
beginnings, middles and ends of which are somehow recognisable
so that the rapidity of change can be understood and the future
predicted. On the contrary, radical new forms of culture and society
are emerging under the heading of 'new media'. This is partly
technology driven: the speed with which digital computer and communications
technologies are developing and becoming ubiquitous is unprecedented.
In technological terms, 'old' usually refers to analog and 'new'
to digital technologies. There is a clear difference between the
two which I will not go into for the purposes of this paper. Suffice
it to say: Our tools shape us as we shape them. (2) The
internet is not simply a faster, more convenient and flexible
way of transmitting information - a 'better' telephone. It also
contributes to a transformation in the way we understand, imagine
and interact with the world. Plenty of studies show that word
processing has changed the ways in which we read and write. The
impact of developments in digital tools are reflected in the increasing
redundancy of such questions as "What is knowledge in the
'information age'?" and "What are national borders in
a 'networked global society'?", and indeed these concepts
are being newly defined.

Signs such as these indicate that technological developments are
currently playing a very large role in the ongoing process of
cultural transformation. However, technology doesn't make this
change happen by itself. We do, after all, shape the tools.
Social change is an inevitable and necessary part of the transformative
process, and society may not change in the direction the technology
seems to suggest. 'New Media' pundits and futurists can tend,
sometimes, to predict a future technologized world which is more
fantasy than reality. I will return to this point later. What
I have tried to indicate with these opening paragraphs is that
while it is important to recognise that change of some sort is
taking place (big changes coming in economics, education and medicine),
there is also room for some 'down to earth' speculation. This
is what I will try to provide in the following sections.

2)Assimilation, Social Critique and Relevance

There are different ways to view the impact of media technology
on live performance forms. One could consider the more or less
direct application and implementation of new media and information
technologies in live performance by looking at ways in which artists
are exploring telematic performance spaces, computerized scenographic
and lighting design, computerized choreography and performer controlled
stage environments, holographic actors/ dancers, etc. This has
been covered in related essays and articles I and others have
written, some of which are available on-line (see Appendix [Part
A]). For the purposes of this paper, I will articulate two other
perspectives.

Firstly, evaluations of the impact of media technologies on theater
and dance should take into account the degree to which they have
already been assimilated into the performing arts. In Western
society in particular, media technologies have had a hand in significantly
altering the communication environment within which artist/ performer
and audience interact. In particular, photography, television,
video and film have played key roles in the evolution of how we
perceive ourselves and these selves in relation to others (society).
For the performance maker, theater director or choreographer,
the impact of these technologies on society bleed over into how
performances are constructed. We see it in the use of montage
in the Tanztheater of Pina Bausch, in the visual scale of Robert
Wilson's 'theater of images', in Robert Lepage's multi-layered
and non-linear narratives, the Wooster Group's deconstruction/
adaptations of texts and William Forsythe's deconstruction/ adaptations
of classical ballet, and in the work of Hans van Manen who has
explicitly explored the formalistic relationship of projected
and live image on stage (e.g. in his 1979 piece Live).

Secondly, one could consider the ways in which media is being
represented in live performance. This brings up the issue
of where and when performance functions as a form of social critique
of technology, or of 'the machine'. The utopian vision for the
future of mankind and technology which existed at the turn of
the century was put out of commission by the two world wars. Both
during and since that time, art movements and forms of dance and
theater have served a crucial function as one of the places from
which to critique the relationship between the individual and
the machine, society and technology. Today, artistic practice
which questions, considers, problematizes and reflects upon the
impact of technology is as necessary as ever before. By
the very nature of their untechnological 'liveness', dance and
theater forms enjoy a particular place in the arts which should
be valued, 'protected' and supported. Also, living bodies and
their direct representations still function as primary political
repositories of dominating power in the world, and, as in the
past, live performance can make a destabilizing contribution where
this power is particularly oppressive (as in former Eastern Europe).
However, this does NOT mean that all live performance needs to
be explicitly political to be 'relevant' and a wary eye
should be cast upon any dominant cultural institution which claims
to protect/ support a politically important theater.

One way to be relevant, whether politically, artistically or otherwise,
is to respond to the fact that audiences' receptive capabilities
are evolving as quickly or even faster than theater and dance.
One of the most frequent excuses given for diminishing audience
turnout and closing of venues is that theater and/ or dance is
quite literally 'boring'. An acclaimed contemporary theater director
who, by all accounts, is definitely not boring is Robert Lepage
from Quebec. In an interview, Lepage addresses this issue by stating
that today's audience consists of "gymnastic" thinkers
- able to process and make sense of complex imagery, non-linear
and overlapping narratives, multiple characters played by one
actor, etc. Lepage talks about "using people's evolving intelligence"
when telling stories in the theater. He says "people are
extremely up-to-date, even if they are not educated or well cultured.
They have a very modern way of connecting things". ( )
if you don't use that of course they're bored". (3)

As the younger generation is raised surfing the internet (reports
indicate that in the USA some 25% or more of what was formerly
'passive' TV viewing time is spent on the internet) and playing
interactive video games - it is even more incumbent upon the forms
of live performance to re-invent themselves in response to this.
On the other hand, in the next section I suggest that there
might be a parallel development which will assist in the survival
and regeneration of audience interest in live performance.

3)Survival of Forms

As I stated earlier, society may not change in the direction the
technology seems to suggest. In this section, I propose that society
may be resisting certain technological possibilities with subsequent
positive ramifications for live performance forms.

One might ask, in the age of new media and information technologies
will theater and dance become extinct, die out? With so many other
attention grasping options for people, web surfing, cd-rom game
playing, interactive cinema, 100s of digital television channels,
etc. what need and what time will there be for people to go to
see theater and dance. With so many possibilities for digitizing,
mediatizing and electronicizing the human performer - and placing
him or her in a virtual three-dimensional simulated performance
space how long will we continue to follow the 'ritual' of
dressing up and going out to attend the spectacle of live performance.
In a short paper titled "The Theater and its Future in a
Brave New World" (online at http://www.modusensemble.com/obj/weber.html),
Carl Weber, Professor of Directing and Dramaturgy at Stanford
University asks "how can theater evolve its unique mode of
'live' performance so that it will stay competitive in a market
where all kinds of electronically created and enhanced performance
will dominate the merchandising of entertainment."

These are understandable fears and reasonable speculations - especially
from a competitive, market economy, 'survival of the fittest'
perspective. However, I feel that there are indications that 'live'
performer will not be replaced in either the near or distant future
by the 'virtual' or electronic actor or dancer and this
has to do not with survival of the fittest, but with the survival
of something whose value may be in the process of being recognised
anew such may be the case, I propose, with the ritual of
attending live performance.

We are historically in a transition phase which is partially signified
by an infatuation with the 'new media' worlds of virtual reality,
interactive multimedia, cyberspace, hypertexts, global villages,
etc. There are already indications that the period of hype is
settling down. The initial euphoria for virtual reality is already
partially over as indicated in Chapter 7 of Brenda Laurel's updated
version of her book Computers as Theater. (4) In 1991,
Amsterdam based De Balie organised a Summer Festival in 1991 where
it was proposed that the 'body' has "turned out to be the
weakest link in technology". A publication associated with
the festival titled Wetware focussed on this theme of the
obsolete body, the "human remnant which is left behind
in the electronic era". There have been many such conferences
and publications produced in the first half of the last decade
of this century from within communities experiencing a period
of infatuation with the digital revolution.

For some it may never have been in question, but in the context
of developments in 'new media' and digital technologies, the value
of material place and physical human contact is reasserting itself.
It is easy enough to imagine the internet as a 'public'
space - as indicated by the formation of many digital communities
and cities around the world. However, the speculation that we
might replace 'real' human contact with virtual contact seems
to be evaporating. In 1984, William Gibson wrote a book in which
he is credited to have coined the term 'cyberspace'. (5) Many
embraced Gibson's vision of a virtual world in which all human
capacities both mental and physical could fully function as a
realisable vision of the future. However, Gibson himself has acknowledged
recently in an interview that the world he imagined has not come
to pass and it is likely that it never will. His latest book of
fiction, Idoru, is still extremely futuristic - but the
notion of the body as simply 'meat' has been adapted to fit within
more humanistic dimensions.

Indications of this shift can be found in other fields. In a letter
to the International Herald Tribune (29 April 1998) entitled "The
'New Economy' Likes Old Community", Neal Peirce cites the
recent work of leading economists who are saying that new technologies
are NOT causing the predicted dispersal of working communities
to remote, (lovely) rural areas from which they can conduct their
business. Rather, the impact of new technologies is now seen in
the fluid and adaptive nature of the 'new economy' which functions
best and most creatively when people can come together face-to-face
even if only for short, intensive periods.

These are indications of the process of cultural transformation
where social change interacts with technological developments.
In my opinion, we will see society beginning to sort out its priorities
and, perhaps in reaction and resistance to the notion of virtuality
(and the nightmare of information overload), the value of our
physical and material public space will increase. And we should
not forget the growing global support for environmental and ecological
efforts to save the future of the physical world.

My proposal here is that as the infatuation with virtual reality
and cyberspace diminishes, we will re-embrace live performance
events and re-congregate in the material buildings and places
which exist for them. In societies overwhelmed with the problems
of too much data, theater and dance will function as a
'content-rich' and information filtered events - which will contribute
to their survival. These developments will help to partially re-invigorate
live performance forms - but by no means can we sit still waiting
for this to happen. Dance and theater must simultaneously be working
to re-invent themselves as relevant to a society looking for new
constellations and configurations of meaning which make sense
for today.

4)Reinvention and New Art Forms

The re-invention of live performance can take place from inside
its existing forms and from outside in the development of new
art forms and disciplines. As surely as with photography and film,
new media technologies will give rise to new art forms (the British
Film and Television Academy is trying to get a jump on this by
creating a new category for awards in the area of 'interactive
multimedia'). Just as with photography and film, these new art
forms will have an impact on theater and dance. In addition to
the interactive multimedia, there are already interesting new
developments in the area of communication and networked artforms,
inspired by the internet. For a further exploration of some of
the ways in which these new art forms are evolving, I have listed
in the Appendix [Part C] a WWW link to Montreal's Museum of
Contemporary Art Media Centre where there is an up-to-date
and comprehensive listing of related new media and digital arts
projects.

These new art forms will demand other modes of perception which
will alter our ways in which we restage Shakespeare or mount a
new choreography. New technologies will also alter the modes
of production of live performance (I address this issue some
in my paper Sampling convergences between dance and technology
- see Appendix [Part A]). As I mentioned before, the more or less
direct application and implementation of new media and information
technologies in live performance is being explored by artists
working with telematic performance spaces, computerized scenographic
and lighting design, computerized choreography and performer controlled
stage environments, holographic actors/ dancers, etc. However,
the fundamental time/ space conditions for the public ritual that
is theater and dance (arrival at and for a specified time and
space as determined by the maker) will not necessarily change.

It is likely that we will continue to see live performance using
increasingly mixed-means - a multidisciplinary performance art
in which independent media, dance, film/ video, sound, scenography,
texts, etc. come together to create more relevant and dynamic
spectacles. Whether this is more dance or theater may become increasingly
unclear. Definitions may be left up to the programmers, producers,
journalists and critics who usually help determine categories
for the public. I suspect we will see less strictly text-based
theater and a more physical one. Possibly 'dance' will increase
in value. Johannes Odenthal, former editor of Ballett International,
on the work of artists such as DV8, Jan Fabre, Meg Stuart, etc.
writes: "Contemporary dance, or better, dance-theatre, gives
(the) deconstructions of current images and concepts a dramatic
actuality that contemporary theatre can hardly achieve".
(6)

There will, I believe, be new forms of dramaturgy developed
which will be relevant for the mixing of these media, and there
will also be new creative organisations which evolve more fluid
ways of working with companies of performers, audience and community
development, support for the growth and development of the makers/
directors/ choreographers, etc. - organisational forms like Victoria
in Gent. In education, such new forms are being developed at DasArts
- an advanced training institution for artists which is associated
with the Amsterdam School of the Arts. DasArts is actively seeking
more relevant educational contexts for young artists and is indicative
of directions in which creative thinking in arts education might
evolve away from the 'institution' and more towards fluid
and adaptive circumstances.

5)Knowledge/ Expertise/ Collaboration:

With all of this going on, where do live performance makers go
for knowledge and expertise in the area of 'new media'? How do
they develop the skills and awareness necessary to re-invent a
theater and dance which is relevant for today's audience?

A simple question might reveal a partial answer. While there is
certainly a place in the live performance professions for new
media specialists, does the performer need to know how to write
computer software, for example? Should a choreographer be capable
of assembling his or her own CD-ROM in the same way that they
might be able to edit a videotape of a performance themselves?

In my opinion, the answer to these questions is an ambiguous,
'yes' and 'no'. The expertise of a digital artist or programmer
is highly specialist and takes a great deal of time and commitment
to learn. With evolving complexity in the technologies, this time/
commitment will only increase. The theater and dance artist benefits
most from training in the performing and making of live performance
(in a very real physical studio), not in spending hours and hours
in front of the computer screen. This is a partially a matter
of priorities, time for physical practice and rehearsal being
one of the fundamental requirements for dance and theater artists.

To illustrate the complexities of digital technologies:
with a typewriter, there is a one to one correspondence between
hitting the keyboard letter A and the resulting mark on the paper
- is an A. With word processing - pressing a particular key is
likely to have a multitude of different possible effects, depending
upon the combinations of other keys and mouse clicks you are using.
The point here is not that live performance artists will have
any trouble learning how to word process, and, of course, the
new generation is growing up with these basic digital tools in
their laps. But, if you extrapolate from this example and include
the rapid and advanced developments in digital technologies which
will be used in the mixed-means live performances I mentioned
earlier (we are far, far beyond the word processor here), then
it should make sense when I suggest that the dance and theater
artist who wishes to work with new media needs to look for collaborators
who are specialised in this medium. See the Appendix [Part B]
for suggestions of where to look in the Netherlands for such collaborators.

However, on the 'yes' side, dance and theater students should
find reflected in their education a greater understanding and
awareness as regards the impact of new media technologies on the
arts. In general, our current arts educators are experiencing
a generation gap which has resulted from the rapid development
of digital technologies. But, it is no longer acceptable for these
educators to remain in a position from which the impact of new
media is not more thoroughly understood and can be communicated
to their students - and this understanding should be informed
by the issues I touched on in my opening paragraphs. Educators
need to be educated.

To return to the idea of mixed-means performance and collaborations
with new media artists on these projects: with the new technologies
comes this increasing complexity on just the technical levels
(not to mention the aesthetic implications) and the result is
the need for a bigger organisation, for more people with the expertise
to handle and manage the digital data encoded in hardware and
software. Live performance will need to learn to accommodate these
larger more complicated organisations better - in operational,
financial and artistic terms - possibly following the model of
film production teams. In my appendix which follows, I will suggest
some resource organisations and projects where these sorts of
collaborations are already taking place.

6)Support for Artistic Experimentation:

To summarize: essentially what I have attempted to illustrate
so far is my viewpoint that while they will and should be influenced
by developments in media and information technology, the basic
forms of live performance (theater/ dance) will survive. BUT,
what about 'new' and unimagined possibilities. For these,
we need to look to the artist. The most talented contemporary
artists always find ways to incorporate and respond to what is
happening in other fields around them, whether directly or indirectly.
The theater and dance artists I mention in the second section
(Lepage, Forsythe, Wilson, van Manen, etc.) are already working
for some time with media as it serves their creative needs, both
old and new. A big question for me, and I assume for the committees
for whom this paper has been written, is how government,
business, education and other forms of cultural institutions can
help to create a future in which artists, working both individually
and collectively, can continue to make creative responses to or
correspondences with evolving 'new media' technologies?

One way to do this would be to establish clear opportunities for
experimentation and exploration. Those responsible for organising
such opportunities should firstly exercise extreme caution not
to set in place immovable organisational structures. Similarly
to what is being recognised as patterns of best functionality
in the 'new economy' (as I mentioned earlier), these opportunities
should be organised to remain fluid, adaptive, dispersible, responsive,
etc.

Besides this, the following five things should be put in place
when creating these opportunities:

artistic expertise, from both theater and dance as well as
the digital side

theoretical expertise, so that a critical awareness can be
fostered

exchange of information with others doing similar work

a place, where experimentation can happen without having to
produce a product

vision for the future of technology in 5 years

*********

I will close this section by proposing a fantasy of my own. I
do suspect that the future may hold something quite different
in terms of training for theater/ dance performers. A digital
training environment would have access to a variety of feedback
mechanisms. Training the body, in dance, is based upon feedback,
visual, proprioceptive, etc. In acting, it's the response from
the actors you are playing with and the audience. It is foreseeable
that digital technologies might create new environments or virtual
simulations in which an actor/ dancer can practice 'performing'.

For the "application and implementation of new media and
information technologies in live performance" one can refer
to a number of the following WWW sites - the two papers I have
written on this theme (with a specific focus on dance) are available
for reading on the Dance and Technology Zone's Critical
Theory section (http://www.art.net/~dtz/theory.html)

In the Netherlands, there is a lot of activity in the field
of 'new media', but not so much exploration in its relationship
to live performance (although there is some activity, past and
current, which I list below). There is more work happening in
other countries which I have also listed below in [Part C]. One
should bear in mind that availability of technologies is greater
in North America. However, in terms of collaborations with specialists
in the field of 'new media' - there is a lot of potential here.

The Virtual Platform is important because it is indicative
of the momentum new media developments have in the Netherlands.
It was founded in the Fall of 1995 on the initiative of the head
of the Visual Art, Architecture and Design department of the Cultural
Affairs Directorate General at the Ministry of Education, Culture
and Science (OCW). Out of this initiative a 'manifesto' document
entitled "From Dada to Data" was published, and it can
be found on the WWW at the following address: http://www.dds.nl/~virtplat/Econt.htm

Some of the themes of my paper are picked up in "From Dada
to Data" as follows:

But the huge expectations which people have about the role
of new technology should not just be accepted blindly. It is doubtful
whether all the limitations will be transcended. Claims like these
are made every time an innovation of any significance appears,
without the anticipated cultural transformation ever materializing.
A healthy skepticism is vital. Take the history of radio, for
example. In the 1920s the euphoria was similar to that surrounding
today's information technology. Much changed in the years that
followed, but many things remained the same. ( ) An essential
aspect of the debate about the influence of new technology is
an awareness of what is changing and, even more, what is not changing.

In the Fall of 1997, there was a conference entitled "From
Practice to Policy" organised by the Virtual Platform. Information
and outcomes from this conference are available online at http://www.dds.nl/~p2p/.

Dance/ Theater and Technology Projects/ Activities in the Netherlands
(past, present and future):

Firstly - this is NOT a comprehensive list. There are other
organisations, schools and individuals involved in investigating
this area which I have not listed here (some I am aware of and
others I am not).

In 1996, Amsterdam and Rotterdam were host to two international
projects related to Dance and Technology. The first was "Connecting
Bodies" hosted by the School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam
School of the Arts in June 1996. This two day international symposium
on the connections between the discourses and practices of dance
and technology will focussed specifically on the impact of new
media technologies on dance making/ choreography. Archive website:
http://huizen.dds.nl/~sdela/boi/sympos.htm. Summary Comments by
Diana Theodores are available at http://art.net/~dtz/diana.html.

The second was "Future Moves" organised by Dick Hollander
at the Theater Lantaren/ Venster, Rotterdam, in September 1996.
"Future Moves" included a two-day conference, a performance
and film series as well as a 'cyberstudio' [a collaboration between
Lantaren/ Venster and Motek (http://www.motek.nl), a commercial
motion capture studio based in Amsterdam]. Archive website: http://www.ipr.nl/~future-moves/

Currently, Dick Hollander is working on plans for a second
'dance and technology' event to be held in Rotterdam in collaboration
with the DEAF98 festival (Digital Electronic Arts Festival organised
by V2), possibly in the fall of 1998.

The Society for Old and New Media in De Waag has recently
organised telematic projects involving performers. On 1
March 1998, "soft mirror" was performed using live video
conferencing equipment to connect dancer Beppie Blankert in the
Grand Theatre, Groningen with Caroline Dokter in de Waag in Amsterdam.
There is an website with some information at http://www.media-gn.nl/mfa/isabelle/Smirror/.
On 20 April 1998, another telematic improvisation took place between
De Waag and the Frascati Theater.

[Part C]International

As mentioned above, there is much more happening in the area of
dance and theater and 'new media' around the world. I have listed
below a number of related websites - festivals, organisations,
institutions, journals, etc. The following are in no particular
order:

Recognizing the convergence between the artistic and scientific
communities, CyberStage examines the use of technology by new
and traditional artists, and also the emerging artistic sensibilities
which are working their way into the development of new media

A general resource site for those exploring the area of dance
and technology. Includes artist links, upcoming and past events,
a mailing list, online critical articles, and do-it-yourself pages.
Many of the sites on this page came from this resource - which
should be visited to see more 'dance and technology' related events/
etc.

This is the web site of the "Open University / BBC Shakespeare
Multimedia Research Project," a team of academics in literature
and theatre studies, BBC drama producers and programmers, all
working to create interactive educational tools about Shakespeare
in performance.

At Riverbed we design and develop new media projects, primarily
for the visual and performing arts. We have strong ties to the
performing and fine arts communities. We have collaborated with
Robert Wilson, Merce Cunningham, the Estate of Keith Haring, and
Bill T. Jones.

The Ohio State University Department of Dance has been active
in the field of dance and technology for some time. Their recent
work in developing multimedia cd-rom platforms for dance can be
found here. You can also read about their Labanwriter project.

The Institute for the Exploration of Virtual Realities, i.e.VR,
is a newly formed institute within the University Theatre and
the Department of Theatre & Film at the University of Kansas.
Its goal is to explore the uses of virtual reality and related
technologies.

Bedford Interactive is a world leader in the development of sound,
pedagogically based Dance Resources in Multimedia. It is a non
profit making research partnership of Jim Schofield, sometime
Director of Information Technology Goldsmiths' College, University
of London, and Jacqueline Smith-Autard, sometime leader of Dance
and Drama, De Montfort University.

The Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre is a professional not-for-profit
theatre, based in New York City. We are busy creating an original
medium that embodies the age we live in, one that reflects the
integration of multiple artistic disciplines and cultures. In
our 21st century digital salon, we collaborate with multimedia
artists and educational and business organizations all over the
globe. Our goal is to reinvent theater, building an interactive
world stage in real and virtual space and time.

This International Dance and Technology will be held at Arizona
State University in Tempe, Arizona. A convergence of performances
and explorations by artists and scholars at the forefront of the
field, the conference will highlight the efforts of individuals
who make use of media and dance in experimental and provocative
ways. Specially designed events will challenge the traditional
conference format, and establish new forms for exploring the use
of dance and technology on the stage, in the gallery, on the web,
and in the classroom. This is the fourth in a series of Dance
& Technology conferences.

8)Citations

(1) From an essay version of a talk entitled "Old and New
Dreams for Tactical Media" by media theorist and artist David
Garcia presented at the Interstanding conference in Tallin in
Winter 1998. Full version available in the Nettime mail archives
(http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998; To: nettime-l@Desk.nl; From: David Garcia <davidg@xs4all.nl>; Subject: <nettime>
Old and New

(2) "Our tools shape us as we shape them" is an idea
central to Marshall McLuhan's theories on the relationship between
man and media. For further reading: McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding
Media: The Extensions of Man (new edition with Introduction
by Lewis Lapham). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1994.